Buying and cooking your beans from dry allows you to build layers of flavor. It’s cheaper than buying canned, too!

Brothy beans are a perfect comfort food. In this easy recipe, beans simmer away in a spicy tomato broth with onions, carrots, and celery, and are served with crusty bread for a perfect winter lunch or dinner.

Brothy beans are taking over the world.

And for good reason. Thanks to a lucky coincidence between chef Carla Lalli Music and Brooklyn restaurant Marlow and Sons, brothy beans reintroduced cooking beans from dry – at least to many people around my age. Or maybe, you watched your mom or grandma make beans from scratch and never actually tried it yourself! So here I am, telling you to just make… beans. It absolutely could not be easier, and you’ll feel like a witch/wizard/mage/whatever. Once you know how to cook with dry beans, you’ll never go back.

It all starts with a good bean. And the best beans, fortunately (or unfortunately) for you, start with fresh, dry, packaged beans purchased from a reliable supplier like Rancho Gordo, or at least, from a large grocery store that probably has large turnover. This is not the time to be buying beans from the bottom shelf at that dusty supermarket. If you’re wondering what it means for a bean to be “fresh”, generally, that means it’s been less than one year since they’ve been dried.

You need to be cooking your beans from dry.

Canned beans have their virtues, don’t get me wrong. If you want to save time, opt for canned beans. In most large grocery stores, you can find canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans), black beans, pinto beans, cannellini beans (white kidney beans), and red kidney beans. These have been listed in order of okay-to-eat-canned. Chickpeas are typically fine. I use them often to make braised chickpeas or homemade hummus. Black and pinto beans are far better made from scratch, but if you’re pressed on time, a bunch of salt and fat will get you to a good place. In my opinion, canned cannellini and red kidney beans are too far gone in terms of flavor and texture. To me, they are often mushy and taste nothing like their fresh counterparts, and can be grainy/mealy.

If you want to save flavor, texture, or money, cook from dry. Brothy beans cannot be brothy beans without cooking them from their dry state. Especially these butter beans that this recipe calls for (also called lima beans and Greek gigantes – butter beans that have not yet been dried are called lima beans, which are greenish and slightly smaller). Butter beans are super popular because of how large they can get, especially when cooked from dry. They are an excellent vehicle for soaking up all that goodness and flavor from the broth that you simmer them in. In this case, theres’ nothing better than a spicy tomato broth, with smashed garlic, crispy pancetta, and parmesan rinds.

Here’s how to properly soak your beans.

Contrary to popular opinion, no, it is not absolutely critical to soak your beans before cooking them. Soaking will, however, shave off some cook time, and is a great way to start if you suspect your beans might have been left on the supermarket shelf for a while.

There are two main methods of soaking beans: the overnight soak, and the quick soak. Overnight soaking simply entails covering the beans with water, adding a pinch of salt, and leaving them in the fridge until the next day when you’re ready to cook. (You could leave them on the counter as well, but if your kitchen runs warm, your beans might sprout! Best leave them in the fridge to be safe.) Don’t soak your beans more than 12 hours, though, or they can absorb too much water and lose flavor.

Quick soaking beans is my preferred method when I want beans, like, very soon. Simply cover your beans with water, add salt, and bring them up to a boil. Remove from the heat and let the beans soak for an hour.

Salt is important. Think about it: your bean friends are sitting there, swelling up, and getting hydrated. What would you rather they drink? Plain old water? Or delicious, salty water that ensures the beans actually begin their cooking journey with some flavor? Your choice! (And yes, the myth that salt toughens beans and lengthens their cooking time is just that: a myth. Google it if you don’t believe me.) Also, some say that salt prevents the beans from splitting open during soaking. Take that for what it’s worth.

At this point, if you’re worried that your beans are shrively and it looks like all the skins are about to pop right off, take a chill pill. Yes, some beans might crack. Mine often do! It’s not the end of the world. Eventually, most of the beans will plump up and fill out their shriveled skin. They will still be delicious.

Let’s discuss the bean and tomato debate.

It is widely known in the bean lovers’ community that beans need to be fully tender before adding an acid to their cooking liquid. Think lemon juice, wine, vinegar, and yes, tomatoes, canned or fresh. Adding an acid at the beginning of the bean cook time will ensure that those beans will take literally forever to cook, and may not ever get there at all. Acidity acts on the starch in bean cells and will prevent the beans from swelling up and softening fully, no matter how long you cook them. You’ll end up with tough-skinned beans instead of the buttery, melt-in-your-mouth ones that we’re going for here.

So how acidic is too acidic? Christopher Kimball and America’s Test Kitchen put this question to the test and found that the pH of bean cooking liquid has to be no lower than 5 in order to achieve a good soft bean (the lower the pH number, the higher the acidity). In our case, the acid in question is canned tomatoes (tomato paste). Canned tomatoes, on average, have a pH of between 3.5 – 4.5. So, if our cooking liquid was mostly or entirely tomatoes and/or we added some other acids in there like vinegar or lemon juice, we would have a situation on our hands.

Luckily, we’re only using about 3 oz of tomato paste, which is not that significant in terms of acidity and the amount of water we’re diluting with. We are, however, cooking down our tomato paste until slightly brown to cook out the raw tomato flavor – and cooking tomatoes increases their acidity.

If you’re like, a smarty pants, you’ll be wondering, why don’t we just decrease the acidity of the bean cooking liquid by adding an alkalizer like, dare I say, baking soda? How I wish that would solve our little problem, friend. You’re right, baking soda will definitely soften up those beans. But it can also impart a nasty taste and sliminess, and if you’re doing this with any beans, you should be discarding the cooking liquid before adding them to anything else. And our cooking liquid is half of the point of this entire recipe. And it’s worth it. Don’t throw it away.

Was that TMI? Don’t worry, just follow the recipe.

In any case, I follow the advice given to me by the bean gods: never put a significant amount of acid into a pot of beans until they are as tender as you’d like. So that’s what I did. We cook the beans in a pot of simmering water with onion, carrot, and celery until they are as tender as can be. Just before you’re ready to eat, we cook down some garlic, pancetta, and tomato paste with crushed red pepper. Whisk in some bean cooking liquid, and add it to the simmering pot. Let the pot go until you’re ready to sit down so that flavors have a little chance to get to know each other.

Still stuck with tough beans?

There’s two reasons why your beans are not cooking through: acid and age. So if you’ve heeded my words and your beans are still as tough as ever, they’re probably super old. Sorry! I urge you to try again with some fresh beans!

In any case, brothy beans in general are more of a concept than they are a recipe.

You’ll notice that this recipe is more devil-may-care than most. “Add a big pinch of salt” and “cover with 2-3 inches of water” are familiar steps when it comes to bean cooking. Like in all things regarding the kitchen, I’m just trying to get you to follow your little bean-lovin’ heart. And your taste buds.

You’ll also notice there’s big variations in cooking time. This all depends on your soaking method and the age of your beans. From start to finish, this took me a total of 1 hour and 45 minutes. 1 hour of that time was used to soak the beans, and 45 minutes of mostly hands-off bean cooking time.

Serve these spicy brothy beans with good crusty bread for soaking up all of that delicious bean liquid. If you have stale bread on hand, make homemade croutons or breadcrumbs and sprinkle them on top! This is also delicious with some homemade aioli on top, or maybe a poached runny egg. Can you tell I’m hungry?

Variations for your brothy beans

• To make this vegetarian, simply leave out the pancetta.
• To make this vegan, leave out the pancetta as well as the parmesan rind. I’m sure this would be pretty delicious with a cheese substitute like nutritional yeast on top!
• If you’re spice-averse, start with half of the listed amount of crushed red pepper.
• Welcome additions: if you have fresh herbs like rosemary, thyme, oregano, etc. they are very welcome here. Bundle up a few sprigs with some kitchen twine and add them into the pot with the onions, carrots, and celery.
• Trying to eat more vegetables? Throw in some hearty greens like kale or swiss chard, or even spinach, in with the tomato paste mixture. Let them simmer until softened.